Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Diaspora doesn’t have what it takes to topple Facebook

blog.backupify.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

21–30 of 38 posts

Re: Diaspora doesn’t have what it takes to topple Facebook

#21

Post by glhaynes »

nlavezzo wrote: post #13

Does anyone remember what happened to Myspace? Of course it was complicated, but I think the primary driver in the exodus from Myspace to Facebook were the perceived privacy benefits of Facebook. People do care about privacy, but will only act on it if there is a reasonably convenient alternative - if Diaspora can make itself convenient, I think it has a chance. Also, add in a slow news week with some sensationalized…

I think the primary driver in the exodus from MySpace to Facebook was the Feed. The experience of Facebook is just so much more "social" because of it. Other things like design/perceived professionalism/etc didn't hurt either, of course.

Re: Diaspora doesn’t have what it takes to topple Facebook

#22

Post by probablyrobots »

"Third, the opportunity to host my own social networking server is one that appeals only to the smallest fraction of the social networking marketplace."

this argument seems really short sighted to me. If disapora takes off I expect social networking accounts will be like email accounts. There will be several dedicated hosts that serve the majority of users (like gmail, yahoo, etc.), but there will also be thousands of other smaller options (including self hosting) that savvier users choose as they see fit.

Re: Diaspora doesn’t have what it takes to topple Facebook

#23

Post by TallGuyShort »

what wrote: post #19
stcredzero wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why make it necessary to switch? Make it an adjunct to FB. The more secure super-hip adjunct. I can imagine someone getting their circle of hip friends on FB because they want to share some racy stuff, and they no longer trust FB. It's entirely plausible that they could still keep track of their school chums and parents on FB. People in protest movements would gravitate toward such software. They have reason to be pa…

Everything still stands. It's too much effort for normal people to host their own node and you won't be able to find anyone else on it. They have to solve discovery before it will even come close to useful.

I'm sure there are a number of groups waiting for September 15th to pounce on the opportunity to provide this service: Inexpensive (or free) Diaspora hosting, that's transparent and easy to manage.

Re: Diaspora doesn’t have what it takes to topple Facebook

#24

Post by orborde »

varjag wrote: post #20
mdasen wrote: post #7

The problem that I have with Diaspora is that they haven't said how they're going to solve the two problems I find interesting. Specifically, Diaspora says that you'll be in charge of your data and that it will be "encrypted at every leg". The problem is that I can't see how Diaspora will address those issues (and I'll explain why). First, they say that they're going to put you in charge of your data. If you post som…

> You can have a good-faith "please delete this" but that doesn't stop another party from keeping it. You can revoke your signature for that message, where it effectively ceases to be yours.

I don't think you can revoke a signature in a way that allows repudiation. You can only say, "I no longer stand by what I said," not "I never signed this."

I could be wrong, though. If you have links demonstrating this, please post them.

Re: Diaspora doesn’t have what it takes to topple Facebook

#26

Post by sprout »

liuliu wrote: post #6

His analogy is confusing. But the argument remains. It simply because you cannot beat the current product by building a better one. You have to build a destructive product in order to gain the critical mass. From the extensive coverage, I can only see a clone of Facebook as Diaspora. Like you cannot build a better search engine to kill Google, you cannot just build a better SNS service to kill Facebook.

Offline access will be the killer app. If Facebook let me download an XML dump of all my data, I wouldn't feel the need to switch. Open data is vital. Source is less important.

Re: Diaspora doesn’t have what it takes to topple Facebook

#27

Post by pinneycolton »

I don't think Diaspora's goal is to topple Facebook. I think their goal is to offer an alternative, and I think they'll succeed at that.

Perhaps the media-invented goal is to topple Facebook, and I do think the Diaspora team is very likely fail at meeting objectives that they themselves have not set! I have never heard the founders say that they want to topple Facebook ... but maybe I wasn't listening closely enough?

Re: Diaspora doesn’t have what it takes to topple Facebook

#28

Post by eli »

stcredzero wrote: post #16
mdasen wrote: post #7

The problem that I have with Diaspora is that they haven't said how they're going to solve the two problems I find interesting. Specifically, Diaspora says that you'll be in charge of your data and that it will be "encrypted at every leg". The problem is that I can't see how Diaspora will address those issues (and I'll explain why). First, they say that they're going to put you in charge of your data. If you post som…

For encryption to be worth something, it needs to be unencrypted by the end user. However, I don't see how they'd do that. Browsers don't integrate this functionality and one could write a plugin, but that's a big barrier to adoption. I'm not sure why a plugin is necessary. Javascript can do encryption. Actually, I'm not even sure why airtight end-to-end encryption is necessary. Most people will use a "standard" inst…

So all these different 'book sites are going to send javascript decryption code with their pages? And how exactly would you prevent one from just stealing your password or being modified in transit?

Re: Diaspora doesn’t have what it takes to topple Facebook

#29

Post by stevejohnson »

stcredzero wrote: post #16
mdasen wrote: post #7

The problem that I have with Diaspora is that they haven't said how they're going to solve the two problems I find interesting. Specifically, Diaspora says that you'll be in charge of your data and that it will be "encrypted at every leg". The problem is that I can't see how Diaspora will address those issues (and I'll explain why). First, they say that they're going to put you in charge of your data. If you post som…

For encryption to be worth something, it needs to be unencrypted by the end user. However, I don't see how they'd do that. Browsers don't integrate this functionality and one could write a plugin, but that's a big barrier to adoption. I'm not sure why a plugin is necessary. Javascript can do encryption. Actually, I'm not even sure why airtight end-to-end encryption is necessary. Most people will use a "standard" inst…

The reason Javascript won't do the trick is that in order to send the correct Javascript, the server needs to have all the information necessary to decrypt all the content anyway. So there's no point in the encryption at all, because the information will pass through the server unencrypted at some stage and can be captured.

If this were implemented as a browser feature or plugin, machines with the user's key information installed would be the only devices capable of decrypting the content sent by the server.

Re: Diaspora doesn’t have what it takes to topple Facebook

#30

Post by andymoe »

It does not matter if Disapora "fails." It's a really important problem they are working on and as long as they release some code and it gets people thinking and talking about how to solve the problems surrounding secure distributed systems it will be time and money well spent. I look forward to seeing the code they release and what they were able to accomplish this summer.
Post reply on HN